HYANNISPORT – There were few surprises in yesterday’s match-play segment of the 59th annual Cape Cod Amateur as Kevin Carey continues his quest to repeat as champion and capture his ninth championship.
The 54-year-old Carey, who is old enough to play in the Senior Division but prefers ruling the Championship Division, rolled to a pair of 4-and-3 victories to gain a spot in this morning’s semifinals at the seaside Hyannisport Club layout.
Carey, who plays out of Dennis Pines Golf Course, topped Chris Tufts in the morning round before stopping another Dennis Pines member, Dave Clapp in the afternoon quarterfinals.
“I finally got it going,” Carey said of his afternoon round. “There were no mistakes. I just hit it down the middle.”
Carey went through a five-hole stretch in 3-under (and never took his foot off the pedal the entire round.
“Kevin is such a solid player, it’s hard to feel bad when you lose to him,” Clapp said. “He got it up and down all afternoon and I never really got untracked.”
The Senior Division is shaping up as a true dogfight with three former champions vying for the title beginning with this morning’s semifinals. Dick King of Hyannis Golf Club, John Crook of Cape Cod National and defending champion Dave Houghton of The Captains all advanced along with newcomer Tom Fox of Farm Neck.
Carey’s Championship Division opponent will be 20-year-old Mike Lepore, who might be having second thoughts about playing hockey for the Cape Cod Cubs rather than honing his golf game at a school in the South.
“The thought has entered my mind, but I still have a couple of semesters to go at Cape Cod Community College before I’ll make any kind of decision,” Lepore said. “We have to see how it goes here in the amateur before I even consider doing anything different.”
Lepore advanced with a come-from-behind 4-and-3 win over Whitney Trimble, then he held off Bayberry Hills champion Stephen Lieberwirth in the quarterfinals, 2 and 1.
Last year’s finalist, Matt Sheran of Olde Barnstable Fairgrounds, moved closer to a rematch with Carey. He edged Woods Hole’s Alex Stimpson 1-up, then topped Tim Norton in the quarters, 4 and 3.
Norton, a junior baseball player at Division I Bryant College who played for the Hyannis Mets in the Cape Cod Baseball League this summer, had trouble overcoming Sheran.
In the last quarterfinal, two-time finalist Brian Secia of Miacomet Golf Club beat talented Mike Marooney of The Ridge Club, 2 and 1.
The match went back and forth, including an improbable halve on the par-4 12th that both players agreed was the turning point of the match.
Secia led, 1-up, going into 12 and after blowing his tee shot into an impossible position, managed to scrape out a par to match Marooney and maintain the 1-up advantage.
“That was the turning point,” Marooney said. “No doubt about it. I felt like I was getting it back to even there and he goes and makes a par. That was a key up-and-down.”
The two swapped wins on two of the next four holes, but a birdie on 17 closed out the win for the 52-year-old Secia.“I am beat,” Secia said. “I was running on empty at the end. I have got no legs left. It’s a good thing the match didn’t go any longer.”
King, the senior medalist in the qualifier, advanced with a 4-and-3 victory over Hyannisport’s Rick Coville in yesterday morning’s quarterfinal.
It must have seemed like the movie “Groundhog Day” for Coville, who has been bumped from the event by King three consecutive years.
Yesterday it was a back-nine blitz by King that put an end to Coville’s hopes.
The two were deadlocked after the front nine and they each parred 10 to advance to the rugged, 420-yard 11th hole all square. Three holes later, King had a 3-up advantage after two pars and a birdie.
“We both played OK,” Coville said. “The difference was on the greens. They were like lightning and Dick putted them well.”
Crook handled another host club member, Peter Thompson, 5 and 4.
“Nothing pretty, just steady golf,” Crook said of his round. “I did have some success on the greens with a number of 1-putts.”
Crook one-putted No. 4 from 6 feet to halve the hole, sank a 7-footer on No. 5 to halve the hole and then ran in a 10-footer for a birdie and a “W” on No. 6. He drained a 20-footer for another win on the eighth hole.
After Thompson chipped in for a win on 10, Crook ran off three straight wins with pars to lock up the win.
“When you play someone of that caliber, you cannot make mistakes and expect to win,” Thompson said of his defeat.
Fox captured the match between tournament rookies when he stopped Hyannisport’s Ron Knight, 3-and-2.
“This was one of those matches where you had to grind it out all the way,” Fox said. “Fortunately, I have been driving the ball well because I’ve been struggling around the greens.”
A great shot into the wind on the par-3 15th hole after Knight had driven his shot on the 175-yard hole to within 12 feet, set up Fox to halve what looked like it would be a Knight win. “That was a confidence-booster for me,” Fox added.
Houghton, the defending champion, handled Bass River’s Russ Caron, 4 and 3. It was the second straight year Houghton has beaten Caron.
“He made every putt out there,” Caron said. “It was quite an exhibition as to how to play these greens.”
Houghton broke open the match after the seventh hole winning Nos. 8 and 9 to go 1-up at the turn. Birdies on 12 and 13 put him up by four and he never looked back.
“I played pretty well,” Houghton said. “The putts were falling when I needed them.”
The semifinals for both divisions begin at 7:30 this morning followed by a break for lunch, with the finals afterward.
No comments:
Post a Comment